Mobile electronic devices are perhaps evolving more quickly than any other segment of technology, and have the potential for eventually replacing personal computers and other, older digital technologies and devices. Many currently available cellular telephones include multiple high-computational-bandwidth processors and a variety of sophisticated software applications, providing access to telecommunications networks, the Internet, and remotely executed applications and services provided by remote server computers and computer systems. Cellular telephones commonly provide alphanumeric-text-entry keys and high-resolution LCD displays, and allow users to view web pages through a locally-executed browser.
Ultimately, it is expected that small mobile electronic devices will evolve to provide complete, fully functional computational platforms, telecommunications and electronic-data-communications interconnection, high-resolution digital still-picture and video photography, and other such functionalities in a single device, replacing, for most consumers, the need to carry and use separate cell phones, portable computers, digital cameras, and other current devices. To that end, developers, designers, and vendors of mobile electronic devices continue to increase the features and functionality provided by cell phones, lower power requirements of cell phones and provide extended-life power supplies in order to extend the duration of independent operation of cell phones, and continue to develop increasingly sophisticated software and hardware components to provide the increasing number of features and functionality. Currently, despite remarkable increases in memory densities, on-board memory remains a significant constraint to designers and developers of mobile electronic devices. Designers, developers, and vendors of electronic mobile devices therefore continue to seek new methods and subcomponents for increasing available memory resources within mobile electronic devices to facilitate continued development and improvement of memory-consuming software applications.